As a little girl I was an avid reader from a very young age and was consuming books at an alarming rate. My mother was always looking for books that would appeal to me and I was given a wide variety of works, pretty much all of which I read from cover to cover. One of my favourites was Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.

A Different World

Perhaps this tale of a secret walled garden captured my imagination simply because our garden at the time was about as far as you could get from secret! Our house sat between two roads and so both the back and the front gardens were visible to all and frankly not very interesting. I wondered what it would be like to have a secret place to which you could retreat and became excited by the prospect of moving house. Sadly when we did move and I saw our new home for the first time I was disappointed to discover that there was no secret garden. The back garden was sizeable and there was no road at the end of it but it was completely open. I didn’t know it then but I was going to get my special place, it just wasn’t going to be at my home.

The Hideaway

At the age of thirteen I changed schools as I had gained a place at the local Grammar School. This was set in ample grounds which included a small wood. We were advised to not go to the wooded area during our lunch breaks and few pupils seemed interested in such an adventure anyway but my best friend and I had other ideas. We soon undertook our first exploratory visit and discovered a small dell which we thought could be our perfect hideaway.

We then spent several lunch hours building a seat out of branches and a canopy. We set up an early warning system using string and old cans that would let us know if anyone had discovered our special place. For many months we spent most of our free time down there enjoying our little secret. Nobody seemed curious about the fact that we would return from lunch with mud on our feet and leaves in our hair!

Growing Up

Years later when I owned my own home I began to struggle with the issue of garden furniture. Having built that wonderful seat in the woods as a teenager no furniture ever seemed appealing or to blend in with the rest of the patio and garden. Plastic furniture looked too harsh and wooden pieces too contrived somehow. Then, one day, I visited a friend’s garden and saw their wrought iron pieces which was a bit of a revelation.

I liked the way that the wrought iron seats seemed to blend in. The curls and swirls of the metalwork echoed the branches of the trees and bushes. The open nature of the wrought iron allowed light to pass through and so it did not dominate the view of the garden like other furniture. The wrought iron pieces simply looked at home. I suppose wrought iron looks a little old fashioned too which somehow took me back to Hodgon Burnett’s story which was written in 1910. I now love wrought iron furniture and if I ever find myself with a secret garden that is what I will put in it!

Article by Sally Stacey